Comcast channel numbers and formats?

[jscozz]

I am on Comcast South Jersey. Have S3 with two cable cards. Only Comcast Limited service. Nothing else.

My Tivo S3 gets all of the channels listed as Analog on the Comcast channel line-up... which I would expect... but the Info reports 480i for each. I am trying to figure out whether Comcast is actually broadcasting the Basic analog channels in SD 480i also, or whether the S3 if just using the analog channel and the guide is showing 480i when it is really using the NTSC signal.

My Sony TV with QAM tuner does show NTSC for NTSC channels, 480i for SD and 720p or 1080i for HD. But I do not have any guide channel mapping to QAM channel mapping to figure out whetehr Tivo is showing the analog or digital versions... I don't even know if Comcast sends digital versions of the analog channels.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me? Does Comcast simulcast the analog channels in digital? Is the Tivo w/ cable card smart enough to use a digital version if available? Is there any current QAM to guide channel number chart for Comcast SJ available? is there any into accessible in the S3 that tells me what source channel Tivo is getting the signal from for a given guide channel?

Jeff

[Gregor]

A quick check to see if they are digital is to schedule a recording. There's no choice for recording quality on digital channels.

[jscozz]

I checked the signal strength for these channels and they all show "Digital signal." So I guess Comcast must be simulcasting all analog channels in digital.

Just out of curiosity, the Diagnostic screen shows the frequency and modulation for teh channel each tuner is on... my channels show QAM 256 which tells me it is a digital channel... I don't have any analog channels to try, but could someone tell me if when tuned to an analog channel, this field shows NTSC?

Jeff

[DamnedEyez]

I checked the signal strength for these channels and they all show "Digital signal." So I guess Comcast must be simulcasting all analog channels in digital.

Just out of curiosity, the Diagnostic screen shows the frequency and modulation for teh channel each tuner is on... my channels show QAM 256 which tells me it is a digital channel... I don't have any analog channels to try, but could someone tell me if when tuned to an analog channel, this field shows NTSC?

Jeff

My diagnostic screen shows QAM 256 under Modulation for the digital channels, but NOT AVAILABLE for the analog.